I don't think Michael's in his own bad place. There's just no way to narratively fix the show where it's stuck on repeat because you can't ever root for anyone - even the most powerful character in the community. At least the overarching theme last season was 'What do we expect from a good place?'

I'm betting it's going to go something like 'the four transcend being in the bad place' but not necessarily by going to the good place, but by themselves becoming bad place architects or something similar making the theme 'If humans can torture themselves so well, why even work at all?'

Good opener all around, especially Tahani trying to figure out what to call a female plumber...clog wench indeed. Also I thought it was super cute that Janet and Jason just immediately fell for each other anything cause they're dumb, naive babies.

Could go either way. But yea his minions are way more incompetent this year.

"I'm going to the gym."

I think part of it is that we're now seeing behind the scenes. The interactions between the human characters were the focus last season and now we've got them interacting mainly with the Bad Place people.

So to point out the obvious thing: all of the characters had undergone growth of some kind last season didn't go away. Elanor didn't immediately go off the rails. Chidi was able to make a decision (which they decided to torture him over, but it was a decision). Tahani was willing to set her own desires aside. Jason... still a dumbass, but he still loved Janet. Since that's the real reason why the things fell apart in hours, Michael is still butthole spidered even without the note. It's just going to take slightly longer. Maybe a day or two instead of one night.

I don't think Michael is in his own bad place, but he's certainly making one for himself. Also, there's no way that Eleanor doesn't find that tape recorder, sending Michael's plans to spiral off again.

I'm curious to see how many Groundhog Day sequences we get before the entire system breaks down.

EDIT: Just noticed that the "Welcome! Everything is Great!" sign at the opening is juuuuuuuust a little crooked.

QuoProQuid fucked around with this message at Sep 21, 2017 around 22:37

It's great! I'm glad to have another show to look forward to each week. I have a feeling there might be more surprises coming, and while I watch a lot of TV and can usually see where these shows are going with the twists (like WestWorld) I didn't expect the "we're in the bad place" thing at all. I wasn't even thinking about maybe they were gonna turn something around on me, hell the only possible hint I could look back on after first viewing was the prank show line and only because they pointed out that they said it!

Now that the huge bomb has been dropped though I'm sure they expect the viewers to be a little more prepared to think outside the box. I find the goons in here can sometimes (albeit rarely) totally guess what's gonna happen in a show. Sometimes I don't mind, I mean it's not like someone correctly guessing something spoils anything because I know they didn't know so I'm not watching new episodes thinking that whatever that post said is gonna happen. For this show however I'll probably have to do my best not to read the thread, that twist was so good I don't even want to have my mind hovering around the idea of another twist because I know they probably can't make another one as good as the first, so if there's even a chance of seeing someone correctly predict it I'd probably be disappointed.

Great show, I hope Trevor comes back, Adam Scott is just a good time, every time.

edit: Aww poo poo, no Adam Scott this season, now I KNOW I'm in the Bad Place.

Danzel Glovington fucked around with this message at Sep 21, 2017 around 23:14

I don't think Michael is in his own bad place, but he's certainly making one for himself. Also, there's no way that Eleanor doesn't find that tape recorder, sending Michael's plans to spiral off again.

She finds it but pretends everything is working so they don't get sent to the place with the butthole spiders. I would totally hang out with Tahani if I could not have butthole spiders.

Earth-1145 is truly the best!A world of singing, magic frogs,
high adventure, no shitposters

I could easily imagine at least an episode or cycle lasting a couple of episodes where it's Michael being found out yet again and convincing at least some of the humans to 'play along' with the idea that they don't know they're in an annoying simulation designed to torture them given that the alternative is penis flatteners and butthole spiders, Shawn and the rest of Michael's bosses (assuming the premiere is on the level) clearly aren't omniscient, and the rest of the actors in the simulation may be evil torturers who long to bite humans, but at least one of them has the acting bug, maybe the entire "Good Place" could turn into a group Budhole, hiding from the rest of the Bad Place. At least until it falls apart before the second ad break.

I could easily imagine at least an episode or cycle lasting a couple of episodes where it's Michael being found out yet again and convincing at least some of the humans to 'play along' with the idea that they don't know they're in an annoying simulation designed to torture them given that the alternative is penis flatteners and butthole spiders, Shawn and the rest of Michael's bosses (assuming the premiere is on the level) clearly aren't omniscient, and the rest of the actors in the simulation may be evil torturers who long to bite humans, but at least one of them has the acting bug, maybe the entire "Good Place" could turn into a group Budhole, hiding from the rest of the Bad Place. At least until it falls apart before the second ad break.

Michael convinces the humans to play along. The Bad Place's upper management is so impressed by his alleged results that they remake the rest of the Bad Place in its image.

The Bad Place becomes the Good Place. The Good Place becomes just another mediocre Mindy St. Claire-style purgatory.

Oh man, it's all so still freshly watched for me so please try to excuse my honeymoon phase excitement. I keep thinking of super subtle stuff that hints at the big season 1 twist that both make sense after rewatch, and would be COMPLETELY unguessable on first watch.

Like the fact that they have frozen yoghurt, and Michaels line about how humans take things that are great and make them worse so they can have more. That stuff is perfect, I'm excited for a second watch to see more of that.

AVC: You talked with Lost and The Leftovers co-creator Damon Lindelof while preparing the show. What was his feedback when you told him that you had a plan for the first season?

Schur: His feedback was instantaneous and decisive, which was such a relief, because I literally said, “The game I want to play with you is called ‘Is This Anything?’” As soon as I finished pitching the world and the characters, he was like, “This is something. Let’s start there.” And then he, in an incredibly smart way, told me, “Here are the pitfalls. Here are the traps you can fall into. Here’s the problem you’re going to hit.” I actually at that point hadn’t come up with the whole season. I had come up with the beginning and the middle. He actually I think said to me, “You just need to know where you’re going.” He talked about how on Lost, in the middle of a season, if they didn’t know where they were going, they started to feel like they were spinning their wheels and treading water. Now they had to do 22, 24, 57 episodes a year, whatever, and they were an hour long. They had bitten off an incredible bite.

God I love this show.
How much do you think this would have collapsed without the note?
On the one hand, it made Eleanor a bit more suspicious and eventually led her to pass on those drinks. On the other hand Michael really laid it out a bit too thick there. Tahani was so miserable from the very beginning, even though she was supposed to feel entitled to be there. The whole town tried to force alcohol on Elly. Jason hated Pillboy 2 so much that he willingly broke his act on the first night, just to get away from him.
I guess we will see what happens if there isn't some note in this iteration. Maybe some of the character development actually sticks beyond the mind wipe.

But I love how incredibly evil Michael is!
He forced Chidi to face the most important decision in his prolonged existence. Much to his surprise, the choice is incredibly obvious. But the moment he finally forced himself to actually say it out loud, Michael storms in and informs him that he made the objectively wrong call and shouldn't even have had this option.
Also "All the good philosophers are in the bad place. But you, you made it here!"

I'm going to reiterate my theory from the last thread that probably won't be proven/disproven for many seasons but here goes: Michael is the Devil. No one knows he's the Devil. No one is in on it. This premiere only cemented this idea in my mind. He's literally torturing everyone, from the main characters, to the "actors" who are supposed to be in on it, to the judge who just wants this little experiment to be over. Even the name Michael means "who is like God?"

I'm going to reiterate my theory from the last thread that probably won't be proven/disproven for many seasons but here goes: Michael is the Devil. No one knows he's the Devil. No one is in on it. This premiere only cemented this idea in my mind. He's literally torturing everyone, from the main characters, to the "actors" who are supposed to be in on it, to the judge who just wants this little experiment to be over. Even the name Michael means "who is like God?"

I'm going to reiterate my theory from the last thread that probably won't be proven/disproven for many seasons but here goes: Michael is the Devil. No one knows he's the Devil. No one is in on it. This premiere only cemented this idea in my mind. He's literally torturing everyone, from the main characters, to the "actors" who are supposed to be in on it, to the judge who just wants this little experiment to be over. Even the name Michael means "who is like God?"

The human animal is a beautiful and terrible creature, capable of limitless compassion and unfathomable cruelty.

They streamed the Ghosted pilot on Twitter last night and it was funny, though it suffered a bit from having to introduce the characters and situation, like pilots do. They're showing it again tonight and tomorrow at 9pm EDT, so you might want to check that out.

God I love this show.
How much do you think this would have collapsed without the note?
On the one hand, it made Eleanor a bit more suspicious and eventually led her to pass on those drinks. On the other hand Michael really laid it out a bit too thick there. Tahani was so miserable from the very beginning, even though she was supposed to feel entitled to be there. The whole town tried to force alcohol on Elly. Jason hated Pillboy 2 so much that he willingly broke his act on the first night, just to get away from him.
I guess we will see what happens if there isn't some note in this iteration. Maybe some of the character development actually sticks beyond the mind wipe.

I think it probably would have collapsed just as fast without the note. Jason knew nothing about the note, and he basically blew the whole thing by breaking character in front of everyone. I think that Michael might fool himself into thinking that the note was the reason the whole thing fell apart, but the actual reason is that his tortures were not subtle enough. It felt too much like torture too soon. Tahani broke at the party and Jason broke a little while later.

I think Michael's whole scheme is doomed to failure simply because in its very nature it gives the humans too much freedom. No matter what scenario you give them, if you're not literally strapping them down and torturing them, humans are going to at least try to seek out ways to not be miserable. They're going to find what happiness they can. Either they figure it out and play along in secret or they don't and they blow the whole cover because they're unhappy and don't want to be. Michael keeps trying to figure out ways to make them behave in a way that keeps them miserable and no matter what he devises they're never going to do that.

I'm wondering if the persistent character development that seems to have taken with the characters (Chidi being more able to speak up and make choices, even if he still gets nauseous, Eleanor actually largely trying to avoid being an ash-hole, Janet and Jason's mutual attraction) even between resets is what ruins "The Good Place 3.0". Like, maybe Michael tells Janet to give them all their favourite books, and instead of Kylie Jenner's Instagram, Eleanor gets her Scanlon book on the social contract.